Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Fast Talk: Effects of Absolute Zero


Effects of Absolute Zero:
When we last left our fleet-footed hero he was staring down the barrel of Captain Cold's astonishing cold gun, threatened with a blast of temperatures below that of absolute zero! Impossible, you say? Quite right and, refreshingly, that's something that Len Snart is rather open about. "I know that sounds impossible--but then everything I do is impossible!" What's that, Len? No lectures in pseudoscience or supervillain self-praise today? Just as surprising is the Rogue's admission that he has no idea what the effect of such impossibly low temperatures might be. A shot from the modified cold gun ("ZWEEE!") settles his--and our--curiosity. In an icy and anticlimactic instant, the scarlet speedster is... broken, separated into seven solid pieces. Yes, with all of his efforts to overcome the very laws of thermodynamics, Cold has simply performed the equivalent of a high school science experiment; he might as well have dipped his arch-nemesis in dry ice and hit him with a hammer. In this instance, the villain's scientific accomplishments seem to be both astonishing and underwhelming simultaneously. At the very least, the frigid felon is overselling the end result: "What an odd effect--but terrific! Of course, Flash would say awful! Just goes to show what stupendous forces there are below absolute zero!" I'm not sure what else to say. With his uncharacteristic candor, it looks as if Captain Cold himself has exposed this week's bit of impossible scientific fast talk!

Issue: The Flash #193 (December 1969)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That issue was so weird. Barry also has telepathy in it -- I don't think anything made sense.

LissBirds said...

That looks quite painful.